The LA Progressive Attacked!!

Several times, over the past week, the LA Progressive was attacked. We were down for many hours on four consecutive days. DDoS attackers got us!!

Unfamiliar with the term DDoS? Well, DDoS attacks are distributed denial-of-service attacks which are designed and implemented by people who are trying to shut down websites.

I won’t venture to guess what motivates these people but their destructive activity seems to ramp up when we’re running a particularly informative piece or when something else is going on in the progressive community.

And, it just so happened that around the same time there was a massive online collaboration to defeat Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s choice for state Supreme Court.

Perhaps not so coincidentally, BeyondChron and Truthout were also attacked. As a result, both of these sites experienced considerable down time as well.

We’ll probably never know if these events are related. The point is the attackers were able to prevent legitimate LA Progressive readers from accessing the site and more important – from reading the articles. And this appears to be the attacker’s goal – to stop people from gaining access to our content.

Beyond Chron, Truthout, LA Progressive and others carry similar content. We created the LA Progressive because when searching for useful newsworthy information we found that there was a void. The lack of information on mainstream media, and the forces behind it, created that void.

Apparently, we’re not the only ones who found that “the news” wasn’t so newsworthy. Just 3 years after launching the LA Progressive, we are viewed on average between 150,000 – 200,000 times a month.

We think our popularity is driven by people who are searching for useful information, people like you. With mainstream media providing more entertainment than news even during the news hour these days, its no wonder our country has become increasingly unaware of vital matters that should command our attention. Most are unaware and uninformed because “the news” isn’t reported in the same way it used to be. It’s just taking a while for the masses to catch on.

But certain people — and by “certain people”, I mean you — will take it upon themselves to find news. You understand what’s at risk when the populace is uninformed. So, as long as people like you continue to seek us out and read our content, we’ll continue to provide it.

The LA Progressive will not compromise its content to avoid these attacks. We are fully aware of the level of opposition we face and we’re ever vigilant to protect ourselves in the event we are attacked again. Yes, it makes me mad and it is frustrating but it also makes me more determined to do an even better job.

We have a great hosting company, iMountain.com, working to protect our site. They are on notice that we need increased security and they are on it!! Big kudos to iMountain whose personnel were up all night fighting the cyber battle. For several days, they worked to build a virtual fortress around our site.

But the attackers are ever vigilant. So we need your support.

There are some things you can do to help us counter the damage done by the attacking perpetrators. “What damage?”, you ask. Well, it hurts us when people come to the LA Progressive, for the first time, and find that the site is “broken”. We need help in spreading the word that the LA Progressive is alive and well so we are asking those of you who like what you see here to spread the word.

We’ve given you easy ways to do this. Just click “share” and pass this or any other LA Progressive article around to your friends on Facebook, Twitter or through email. This is helpful. Please do it. This will help counteract the damaging affects of the hackers and counter the efforts of those wanting to keep you uninformed.

Another way to support us is to find out about and join Kachingle. Kachingle provides a way to pay websites for content much like iTunes. We are a member of the Kachingle network and we hope you’ll join too. I have to tell you that even though we get viewed 150,000 – 200,000 times a month, very few people ever donate. If Kachingle catches on, we may have found a business model that’ll help sustain us.

Please watch this 1 minute 36 second video to learn more:

Thanks for reading the LA Progressive. We’ve placed a space for Kachingle to the right. Click it to show your support. It is your continued interest that motivates us to keep doing what we do regardless of the attacks!!

Sharon KylePublisher

Posted on April 8, 2011

DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed here are those of the individual contributor(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the LA Progressive, its publisher, editor or any of its other contributors.

About Sharon Kyle

Sharon Kyle, J.D. is the Publisher of the LA Progressive which she co-founded with her husband Dick Price. Ms. Kyle is a professor of law at Peoples College of Law in Los Angeles. She sits on the union board of the ACLU of Southern California and is on the editorial board of the BlackCommentator.com. Ms. Kyle is the proud mother of a teacher and an attorney and proud step-mom of a premed student.

Comments

So, this explains why I could not register this morning. I am very happy I found this site through a Facebook friend. As a progressive who lives in the middle of LA – I want to connect with other local progressives and plan a cohesive approach to the mighty problems that are facing us.

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